Monthly Archives: December 2008

I recently received this question:“In Illustrator, is there a way to take off the default setting of “Lock Guides”? I’d also like to display rulers automatically. I know it doesn’t take long to unlock guides or display rulers, but it would be nice to make these the default settings.”

There is a way to control some aspects of Illustrator, and while it may seem a bit long-winded, it’s actually a pretty simple undertaking. You may decide it’s just saner to change such things when you open a new file, but if you’re curious … Continue reading →

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(What does this have to do with software? Uh, I had to use Photoshop to clean up my photos…)

At the end of the year, all the travel starts to wear me down: I pack robotically, the flights seem longer, and the hotel food gets steadily worse. But this is my last trip of the year, and it’s a nice way to end the year. I’m doing 4 days of Acrobat training for the United Nations — I’ll bet you didn’t know that there’s a complete printing plant in the basement of the U.N.! They’re a great bunch of people, from all over the world, and they have to run 24 hours a day to keep up with the avalanche of words generated by all the diplomatic missions every day.

I’ll be working in rotating shifts to train everyone, so I’ll be a bit crispy around the edges by the end of the week. But that’s offset by the fun of being in New York City near Christmas. No snow yet, but it’s quite cold. That hasn’t deterred the tourists and locals crowding the streets to ooh and aah at the decorations, the imaginative store windows, and — of course — The Tree at Rockefeller Center.

Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, 2008

It odd when you see something that you’ve seen countless times on television or in movies — it’s a sort of artificial déjà vu. It somehow seems “realer” in person because it’s already familiar. The tree is huge, but the surrounding buildings dwarf it, and you sort of lose your sense of scale. Suddenly, the skaters on the rink below seem miniature.

On another note, I don’t understand the jokes about “rude New Yorkers” — I’ve never had that experience. If anything, I find it a very comfortable city, and never more so than at this time of year. The decorations sort of soften everyone up, and the kids’ excitement is contagious.

Angel decoration (left); giant drummer (right)

Hope that seasonal feeling is starting to take hold where you are, too. We all need a little winter cheer to warm us against the cold (well, not so much in Miami…) and to act as an antidote for the increasingly bitter economic weather.

I’ve just received word that my book, “Real World Print Production” (Peachpit Press, 2006) is going to be revised. I’m pleased that Peachpit is going to let me update the book for current versions of software, and it will also give me the opportunity to expand some of the other content to reflect changes and growth in print and imaging technologies.

It all sounds like such fun now; check back when I’ve been up for 18 hours pounding the keyboard or staring at a stubborn paragraph 🙂

No ETA yet; I haven’t started pounding the keyboard. But I’m hoping to have it done by early Spring.

If you’re a print service provider who’s starting to receive CS4 files for output, you might appreciate the latest revision of the venerable Printing Guide. It’s now available here.

The PDF is fully bookmarked; open the Bookmarks panel (View>Navigation Panels>Bookmarks) to reveal the extensive list of hyperlinked topics. Additionally, the Table of Contents is hyperlinked to internal content, so it’s easy to find your way around.

Designers will find lots of useful content, too. You can select a low-res or high-res version of the 139-page guide, and you’ll also find the CS3 version of the printing guide on the same page. Both offer insights into print-specific features in the Suite applications, and provide cautions and workarounds for each application.

I’m proud to say that I’m responsible for both the CS3 and CS4 revisions, starting with the CS2 version and building on its content. Consequently, some of the content is legacy, some was contributed by other revisers during the early CS3 phase, but the final versions of both are my doing. It was a labor of love, and I’m proud of the finished pieces. I hope you find the guides a valuable resource.

Given recent upheaval at Adobe (600 layoffs yesterday, including some very dear friends), I don’t know if there will be more versions of this resource. If Adobe doesn’t spearhead an update for future CS versions (assuming there will be future CS versions, and I can’t imagine there won’t be), I’ll do it myself.

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Photoshop’s “Smart Object” and “Smart Filter” options provide the ultimate in flexibility: in essence, you store an unchanged version of the pixel or vector data in the pantry (embedded in the file), and Photoshop can always use that information as a fresh starting point for edits and transforms. You can designate any layer as a Smart Object via the Layers Panel menu, and when you import pixel or vector content by choosing File>Place, it’s automatically earmarked as a Smart Object.

Additionally, you can use Filter>Convert for Smart Filters to use the Smart Object approach while you apply endless filters to transmogrify a layer (and not always for the better). Continue reading →